New Delhi, July 3: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said malpractice was observed in the recent West Bengal panchayat elections that were held in May this year.  In wake of a large number of no-contest seats in the recent panchayat polls, the Apex Court has pulled up West Bengal Election Commission (EC) and has asked to provide proper statistics about the number of no-contest seats by Wednesday.

According to a report by TOI, the court pointed that the number of seats going uncontested is particularly high in Birbhum, Bankura, Murshidabad and Purva Bardhaman. The Court observed that it is puzzling to know that of the 48,000-gram Panchayat seats more than 16,000 go uncontested.

The Apex Court has therefore instructed the state elections commission to give the exact statistic about the number of seats that went uncontested in Zilla Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and gram panchayat elections by Wednesday, a TOI report said.

The Court on Tuesday took up a petition on the violence in the recent West Bengal panchayat elections and the 'unopposed' election of more than 17,000 candidates backed by the ruling Trinamool Congress.  The recent move by the Supreme Court is seen as a major setback for Mamata Banerjee led- Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. Referring to statistics on uncontested seats in various districts in the panchayat polls, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said a few hundred can be understood, but the number is running in thousand and it’s a serios matter.

In the recent polls, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) had won 34 per cent of seats uncontested in the gram panchayat polls. According to data released by the West Bengal State Election Commission (SEC) 20,076 of the 58,692 seats were gone uncontested.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 03, 2018 05:08 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).